Permanent Solution
The Permanent Solution is a neurosurgical treatment under development at Haworth Labs by Dr. Anton Verloc, intended to replace Joy. It represents the apex of Wellington Wells' crazy strive for happiness. Background After years of continuous and heavy use of Joy, the entire population of Wellington Wells had become seriously addicted to the drug, which created an extremely high demand for Joy, to the point where Haworth Labs, the producer of Joy, eventually began running out of raw materials for producing the drug. By the 1960s, there was now a very real danger of completely exhausting the needed raw materials, which could potentially lead to a serious drug shortage in the future. To prevent this from happening, Haworth Labs begun supplementing their Joy with a substitute version by producing the drug with substitute materials sourced from the city itself. This turned out to be a gross mistake as the substitute Joy did not produce any of the desired effects and would oftentimes come with severe side-effects, such as severe stupidity or even insanity. Despite the substitute Joy being a failure, Haworth Labs decided to begin producing it anyway, in order to prevent Wellington Wells from running out of Joy. With the substitute Joy being produced alongside and often mixed in amongst the real Joy, the general quality of the drug begun to deteriorate, resulting in the occasional creation a "bad batches" containing defective substitute Joy, turning the users into Wastrels. In time, the Wastrel population of the Garden District begun to rise at an alarming pace. By 1964, the quality of Joy was in rapid decline as the defective substitute Joy was now making up an ever-larger percentage of the total Joy production, resulting in an ever-increasing number of bad batches being produced and this was causing more and more people to suffer from terrible side effects. Realizing that the quality of Joy would soon be irreparably crippled, Anton Verloc began developing a "Permanent Solution" to replace Joy, fix all problems existing with the drug and thus render it completely obsolete. Overview While the exact details of the "Permanent Solution" are never given, if the player collects enough papers, notes and lore pickups in Arthur's story, they can piece together the following picture; The "Permanent Solution" is based on Harry Haworth's hypothesis that the true source of happiness lies in physical manipulation of the brain. After usurping control of Haworth Labs, Anton Verloc put this theory into practice when he began developing the "Permanent Solution". Initial tests with various chemical compounds stronger than Joy proved unsuccessful; the A-369 prototype formula ended up driving the recipients insane rather than induce happiness and after enough failures, Verloc decided to switch over to an electrical approach. The end result of the project was an upgraded version of the plastic Happy Face mask, outfitted with microfilament wires routed through the eye cavity into the optic nerve and from there into the pleasure center of the brain. The idea was to utilize a mild electric current to stimulate the pleasure center to artificially trigger the release of the appropriate hormones, inducing happiness in the recipient. This arrangement did, however, come with an extreme downside; tampering with the brain in this fashion would not only cause the victim to end up locked into a permanent state of happiness but it would also destroy most of their higher brain functions, reducing their intelligence down to a level comparable to an animal. With this in mind, the "Permanent Solution" is little more than a hideous plan by Anton Verloc to lobotomize the people of Wellington Wells into a permanent state of happiness, essentially turning them into near-mindless nigh-soulless organic robots unable to think or feel anything normally, all in the name of happiness. Coconut Joy It is possible that Coconut Joy, the most recent flavour of Joy that is close to being released, is meant to be an alternative to the "Permanent Solution" that Anton has in mind, though it's hinted that it would do much of the same thing as the "Permanent Solution". Coconut, mentioned to be a stronger alternative to regular Joy, would probably be able to alter the person's brain chemistry and make them permanently happy. Testings of Coconut has been done not only at Verloc's secret lair in Haworth Labs, but also at Wellington Wells Health Institute by Harold Ridgewell. While a couple tests show promising results, Vanessa Tinker-Bell is mentioned to have been rid of melancholy and unpleasant memories, though has lost bits and pieces of her intelligence as she now believes she can fly. Harry Haworth is shown to endure vomiting and Harry Plantagenet display utter panic when breathing in the fumes from the Coconut Joy tests. Even Arthur is mentioned to go through rather strong reactions. All doctors and maintenance workers are aware that Sally Boyle was the brains behind everything, as it was with her brilliant knowledge of local plants that Haworth Labs is even able to produce any more Joy. During the events of We All Fall Down, Coconut Joy is said to be released soon, with a queue built up outside of Haworth Labs. Though when talking to Anton, he mentions that he is very close to his "Permanent Solution", but begs for Victoria to bring Sally Boyle back to him for reasons not really known, though it can be assumed that because she has far better knowledge of drug synthesising that it's with her help that the whole of Wellington Wells will finally be in a state of eternal happiness. Category:Lore